Ogre Battle: The March of the Black QueenReview

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Improve your reputation by pursuing liberation.

By Lucas M. Thomas

Some of them are more useful than others. Strength and Star, for example, just give your units a minor stat boost. Tower, Justice and Hermit are a little bit flashier, since they each attack the enemy with a different elemental magic. And Death is probably one of the most interesting, since it can instantly kill a foe on the spot. Using it, though, will lower your reputation.

These are all the names of tarot cards, each one an example of one of the most unique and memorable gameplay mechanics found in Ogre Battle: The March of the Black Queen, which is both a classic Square Enix strategy RPG and the latest addition to the Wii's Virtual Console lineup. The cards come into play fairly frequently throughout the adventure -- that first set of examples being drawn from their usage in battle sequences.

Choosing whether or not to use a tarot is one of the only actions you can take in combat, actually, as Ogre Battle's battles are almost entirely automatic. You field your forces, you set up their formations and select one of four basic attack strategies ahead of time. But after one of your units encounters the enemy, it's pretty much hands-off -- no menus to navigate, no choosing "Attack" or "Magic" or "Item" and then pointing a cursor at a character on the screen. It's all handled for you, in cut-away scenes starring some much more detailed and attractive sprites than you'll see on the map screen.

"Your Reputation went DOWN 2 points."

The autopiloted combat gives you more mental bandwidth to be able to concentrate on the greater strategy unfolding on that map screen, though, where the majority of the action takes place. Ogre Battle's all about controlling land area, ultimately, as the game is separated out into chapters and each chapter has its own unique terrain. Plains, rivers, mountains and forests must all be traversed by your many fighting men, on their way to liberating towns and temples from the control of the villainous Zetegenian Empire.

Liberating towns and temples, then, gives you places where your units can be healed, go shopping for spells and upgrades and earn money to fuel the ongoing war effort. And every time you free one of these places (a simple matter of making it to them on the map, cutting a path through any enemies in your way) you get to draw a tarot card. Everything comes full circle.

Ogre Battle is an incredibly deep and involved strategy RPG, and even that description of its gameplay so far is just scratching the surface -- this is a game where you'll also be recruiting new allies, searching for hidden treasures on the battlefield, managing your reputation with the citizens of the country (because a better reputation means a better ending at the quest's conclusion) and more.

Reputation is actually another of Ogre Battle's more interesting (and somewhat intangible) inclusions. It's a factor that's first formed in the game's intro sequence, which involves a fairly lengthy questionnaire conducted by Ogre Battle's resident wizard/tutorialist Warren Moon -- he quizzes you on your ethics, morality and leadership style, and your starting rep and soldier set is based on your responses.

The questions, of course, are all based on that same tarot set. And the questions are randomized every time you begin a new playthrough.

It's details like that that have made Ogre Battle one of those games you could discuss for days, and play for weeks. Even play through multiple times, because of its multiple endings. And so several fans have, over the years. Ogre Battle was originally released for the SNES here in America in 1995, and in the decade and a half since then it's gained a dedicated cult following. Its elusiveness, too, has made it all the more intriguing for strategy fans -- that's thanks to the rarity of its original cartridges, as only 25,000 copies of the title were ever produced.

The Verdict

If you're not lucky enough to be one of the owners of one of those copies, you would have been looking at spending a hefty chunk of cash to buy a legitimate edition before this past Monday -- but now, with the game available for download from the Wii Shop for just eight bucks, it's an incredible deal. If you're at all a fan of strategy titles like Fire Emblem, Shining Force, Advance Wars or any modern game with the word "Tactics" in its title, you owe it to yourself to check out one of the rarest and most respected entries into the genre from the 16-bit generation.

And, if we're lucky, this might only be the first Ogre Battle to see a VC re-release -- March of the Black Queen's sequel, Ogre Battle 64: Person of Lordly Caliber, is also an incredible game that could potentially appear in a future Wii-kly Update. So use your digital dollars to let Square Enix and Nintendo know there'd be an audience for that one too -- your reputation will go up if you do.

9GameplayThis game gave rise to a whole new franchise, and it's easy to see why -- it's an innovative, unique strategy design with details too numerous to count.

9.5Lasting AppealDownloading Ogre Battle digitally is an incredible value, both because of its expensiveness to own in its rare cartridge form, and also for the sheer number of hours of gameplay it offers.